


Ordinary Storybrooke Problems

by WordCasters



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:19:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4029907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordCasters/pseuds/WordCasters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Storybrooke is a unique kind of town so it is going to have unique kinds of problems. Some of these problems are exciting and involve magic and villains. Some of these problems are dull and involve paperwork and school boards. These stories are about the boring ordinary problems of living in a magical town and the citizens that have to try and find solutions to them while hiding from wicked witches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Duorum Nomina

Snow looked up from the paper in her hand when the small office clock chimed seven. On instinct she glanced across the room to the bassinet where Neal was sleeping and held her breath while she waited to see whether or not the noise would disturb his slumber. She let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t stir. With that worry tucked away Snow’s tired and stressed brain finally registered what that sound meant. Seven o’clock! She was supposed to have headed home an hour ago. She had just come into the office to try and get a little paper work done. It wasn’t supposed to be difficult paper work. All she had to do was take the forms filled out by the town residents and file them in the correct place. She realized she had been at it for almost six hours and not only were the forms not filed, the files themselves were now a disorganized mess. Mayor Mary Margaret started to cry.

* * *

 

Emma opened the door cautiously, her muscles tense and a defensive spell on the tip of her tongue. What she found when she opened the door was in many ways worse than anything she had imagined. If there had been a villain holding her mother and baby brother hostage she would have at least known what to do. Kick bad guy butt. She was good at kicking bad guy butt. But there wasn’t a bad guy in sight. Instead when she opened the door to the mayor’s office she found Snow White sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by mounds of papers and boxes sobbing. David rushed to his wife’s side. Checking for injuries and demanding to know what had happened. “I can’t even to do simple paperwork.” Snow sobbed. “I can’t find anything. How am I supposed to run a town? I’ve let everyone down. I’m useless.” She looked down at the paper in her hand and burst into renewed tears.

David was wrong footed as his daughter. He would know what to do if someone had hurt or threatened his wife or son. Kick bad guy butt. He was good at kicking bad guy butt. He had no idea how to help his wife with seemingly impossible paper work. He looked helplessly at his daughter who was still standing stunned in the doorway. Emma stared back at him feeling just as helpless. Desperate to do something, anything, to make the situation better she finally broke the silence. “I’m going to go find Regina.”

* * *

 

Regina grudgingly followed Emma to the Mayor’s Office. She had only agreed to come because Henry had been there when Emma had arrived practically begging for her help. Henry had clearly expected her to go and she hadn’t want to disappoint him. At the sight of what had been done to her beautiful well ordered, perfectly organized office she nearly lost her composure. She felt her temper start to burn and she automatically reached for her magic. Then she heard the baby. Snow got up from the chair Charming had helped her into and went to pick up her son who had finally woken from his nap. Little Neal’s cries reminded her of her own days as a mayor-mother of a newborn. She took a deep breath and let go of the destructive magic. She took another deep breath and began to gather a different kind of magic. She made two quick motions with her hands and the paper began to fly around the room. When things settled back down every paper was back where it had come from and the forms Snow had been trying to file were stacked neatly on the desk, in alphabetical order. Regina liked to do things right.

“What is going on here?” Regina asked her voice terse.

Mary Margaret’s eyes were still red but she had regained her composure. Now that she was no longer half hysterical she felt rather embarrassed by the whole mess. With Neal in one arm she motioned to the forms on the desk with other. “I was trying to file the housing forms so that we could try and find places for the people caught in this curse who weren’t part of the last one but not all of the names are in the town registry. I thought you said the town registry was complete.”

Regina didn’t miss the note of accusation in the last sentence. “It is complete” she snapped “It had to be because of the way the curse was designed.” She walked over to the forms and started looking through them. It only took her a moment to find the problem. “The registry is part of the curse so the names recorded on it are the names given to the citizens by the curse. Not everyone used that name when they filled out the forms. It seems several of them put down their Enchanted Forest name.” She picked out one of the forms. “Like this one. Jack B. Knimbal, he was late with the castle’s monthly order of candles once. In this world he’s paralyzed from the waist down and his name is Cameron Wheelwright.” She made a note about the name in the corner of the form and filed it in the correct place.

Mary Margaret felt foolish. It should have been obvious that none of the names on the registry were ones she remembered from the Enchanted Forest and that some of the names on the forms were. David looked relieved. “Well that problems solved. Just insist that people fill out forms with their curse name.”

Mary Margaret looked at her husband with horror “David! We can’t do that. These people had their identity stolen from them and replaced with one from the twisted imagination of a wicked queen, no offense Regina,”

“None taken”

“We can’t just force them to accept the identity she gave them in replace of their own.”

David looked confused. “Then how are you going to do paperwork? You can’t spend all day trying to track down these people just to match Storybrooke names to Enchanted Forest names.”

Without even looking up from the paperwork she idly and automatically filling out Regina replied, “Oh that’s easy. Just take a census and have everyone put down both names so they can be cross indexed. The fairies and the shoe elves can probably help.”

Emma, Mary Margaret, and David all stared at her as she continued to swiftly take care of the neglected paperwork Mary Margaret had left on the desk. She eventually felt the weight of their combined stares and looked up. “What?”

Snow White looked at her son and made a decision. “I don’t want to be mayor. I think I was alright at being Queen but Queens get a lot more advisers than mayors do and there’s not nearly as much administrating. You’re good at this Regina. You make a much better mayor than you ever did Queen. Please take the job back.”

David looked at his wife, “Are you sure abou-“ “Yes I’m sure, I am absolutely sure.” “Alright”

They looked at Regina. She sniffed. “Well, if it’s what’s best for the town I guess I don’t have a choice. I am trying to be good now. For Henry’s sake.”

Mary Margaret looked relieved. David just seemed glad that the problem seemed to have been handled. Only Emma seemed to realize that they would now have to explain the town that Snow White had put Regina back in charge.


	2. Of Cheese and Trees

Martha Muffet (also known as Charlotte White) was filling out spreadsheets on the kitchen table when her daughter Joy (also known as Mary) arrived home from school.

“How was your day dear?”

“It was okay.” Joy slung her backpack off of her shoulders and onto the kitchen floor next to the table then headed for the refrigerator. After a moment’s consideration she grabbed a cheese stick (cheddar extra-sharp) and a cup of yogurt to snack on while she did her homework.

Martha stared at the cheese. The part of her known as Charlotte White saw absolutely nothing peculiar about the sight but the other part of her marveled at the straight stick of cheese in its tight plastic wrapping.

“I wonder how they get the cheese in that shape. Do they use tiny little rectangle molds or do they use big molds and cut it into pieces before they put it in the plastic?”

She gave a little mental shrug and shuffled her things around to make room for her daughter at the table. She glanced up and saw the look on her daughter’s face. The look that clearly said she had no idea why her mother cared how cheese was made but was too polite to ask about it. It was in that moment that Martha Muffet realized her nine year-old daughter knew nothing about cheese making.

Martha had been making cheese with her mother since she was seven. When Mary was born she had used cheese cloths as swaddling clothes and dreamed of the day she would pass the art of cheese making to her daughter. Now her daughter stood before her nine years-old and, not only did she not know anything about cheese making, she didn’t even understand why it was important to her mother.

Cheese making requires patience and Muffets never rush into anything so Martha took her time thinking about this startling revelation. Though it nearly broke her heart to think it, maybe there wasn’t any reason to teach Joy how to make cheese. It was looking more and more like they might stay in Storybrooke for good this time and there was no need to make cheese in Storybrooke. Cheese just showed up with all the other store supplies in the mysterious delivery trucks everyone tried hard not to think too much about. On the other hand, what if they did go back to the Enchanted Forest? What good would Joy’s Storybrooke public education do her there? Martha thought about these things all night, she didn’t get much sleep.   

* * *

 

In the Enchanted Forest he had been known as Josef Woodcutter. In Storybrooke he was called Michael Tillman. Like a lot of Storybrooke adults he had started using his original name again after the curse broke. However, since his auto shop was still called Tillman’s, a lot of the town’s residents still thought of him as Mr. Tillman. The end result was that he was now known as Josef Tillman to most of his neighbors, including Martha Muffet. Their children were about the same age and Joy and Ava had always gotten along well, both before and after the curse so they knew each other fairly well.

“Hello Josef!”  Josef grinned down at the short stocky woman.

“Hey, Martha, how are things?”

He’d hoped to run into her at the school’s Open House night. Charlotte had been a huge help before the curse broke when he was trying to figure out how to care for two children he’d only just found out existed. After the curse broke and he remembered all he knew about being a father he’d had fewer excuses to seek out her advice.

“Good. Things are g—, no actually there not. Josef have you thought about what would happen to Ava and Nicholas if we were go to back to the Enchanted Forest?”

“We’re going back?  How? When? What have you heard?”

“Calm down, I haven’t heard anything. I just realized the other day that Joy doesn’t know how to make cheese and I just started thinking, what if we do go back? How will she make a living?” Martha gestured to one of the class projects on the wall. Josef thought it probably depicted a president, although he wasn’t sure which one. “What good is knowing about the War of 1812 going to be there? For that matter shouldn’t we be trying to teach our children some of our own history even if we never go back?”

Josef wasn’t a particularly smart man and he knew it. The smartest thing he’d ever done was marry Ellen, but he did know trees. He’d been good at cutting down trees. He knew how to spot a tree that would timber easily but still produce good wood and how to cut it so it would fall in just the right place. Everything else he’d left up to Ellen. Michael had been much the same only with cars. He could fix just about anything but actually running a business baffled him. He’d figured out pretty quick that his son was a lot more like him than his quick witted twin sister. After his last rather dismal report card, Josef had decided to start teaching Nicholas about cars.

Now that plan he’d been so proud of just a week ago seemed useless. What good would knowing cars be in the Enchanted Forest? (For that matter he wasn’t sure it mattered all that much here, there only seemed to be about half a dozen cars in the whole town but he tried not to think too much about that.) What good would Ava’s stunning report cards be? Were either of his children learning things that they would actually be able to use? How was he supposed to known? He looked down at his hands which now seemed so useless in providing for his family.

“I miss my trees.”

Martha nodded in silent sympathy. She missed her cows and her cheese. Life used to be simple.

Caught up in their worried thoughts about the future, they almost missed the rumors that Snow White had appointed Regina as mayor.


	3. The Spider's Den

“I’m going to close up in about ten minutes, do you want to check anything out?” Martha looked up from her book then at the stack of books sitting next to her elbow. She closed the book she was reading then picked three from the stack. “I’ll take these four.”

The librarian, Belle French, smiled and led the way to the checkout desk. She glanced curiously at the titles. “You’ve checked out about dozen books on education this week, are you working on some kind of project?”

“I’m worried about what will happen to Mary if we go back to the Enchanted Forest.”

“Mary?”

“My daughter, I named her Mary but she prefers to use her curse-name Joy.”

“Oh, I know Joy she likes mystery books. What did you do in the Enchanted Forest?”

“I was a cheese maker.”

“And Joy doesn’t know anything about cheese making does she?”

Martha was surprised that someone without children would catch on to the problem so quickly. “No she doesn’t. I considered pulling her from school and home schooling but it’s not enough to teach her cheese making and Enchanted Forest history. What if we don’t go back? Then she’s going to need a completely different set of skills.”

“So you’re trying to design a hybrid program?”

“Pretty much”

“I might be able to help with that. The shop has a bunch of Enchanted Forest artifacts including books. I could look and see if there’s anything there that might help with that half of the curriculum.”

“The shop? Mr. Gold’s shop? I don’t want to trouble him. It’s probably best if you don’t bother.”

“It won’t be any bother, I’ll see what I can find and meet you here on Monday. Say hi to Joy for me.”

* * *

  Despite her initial misgivings, Belle’s help had turned out to be invaluable. The woman had a gift for research and access to excellent resources. Although Martha was still a little worried Rumpelstiltskin was going to come barging in talking about prices.

She looked down at the beautifully embossed book in her hand and gently stroked the spine. “You know, sometimes I think it wouldn’t be so bad to stay in this world permanently. The health care is great and the spiders are much less scary. The tarantulas are almost down right cute. Then I look at one of these books you bring and I get… I don’t know I guess homesick. And scared. I don’t want all of this, culture _our_ culture to be lost. The children should know about the Giant Wars, the Starlight Festival and The Great Goose Debacle of King Humphrey’s reign.”

Belle nodded. “My mother died during the Ogre Rebellion. Awful as it was forgetting it was worse.”

“I don’t just need a curriculum for my daughter we need one for the town but I have no idea where to begin on something of that scale.”

They both sat in silence for a bit.

“Snow!” Belle shouted.

Martha groaned. “Again? Winters in Maine are bad enough without some ice witch frosting everything over in June.”

“No, it’s not snowin-“ Belle glanced out the window “Well, actually it is snowing again. But I meant Mary Margaret would be the person to ask. She’s a licensed educator. Curse-licensed anyway.”

* * *

 Mary Margaret tried to help. She really did but she was still trying to deal with the ice problem and take care of an infant son. She could help with basic questions about World-Without-Magic school systems but she really didn’t have the skills needed to organize a complete overhaul of the current education system even if she’d had the time.

“I love what you’re trying to do. I think it’s a great idea, but I’m really not the person you should be asking for help. You need Regina.”

Martha Muffet blanched. “R-r-r-regina?”

Belle, on the other hand, considered the idea thoughtfully. “She would be good at this and since she’s mayor again she would have to be brought into it eventually anyway. I’ll schedule an appointment and we can discuss it with her.”

Martha stared at Belle. “You want to schedule an appointment with the evil queen to discuss education theory?”

“Mary Margaret’s right. She’s the right person for the job. She got organizational skills, political power, a soft spot for children and Henry’s future to consider. She’s perfect.”

And that was how Ms. Muffet found herself standing in front of the Evil Queen’s office door too scared to even be frightened away.


End file.
